I thought I would post quickly about a recent image I designed for a client in Florida. One of the owners of a new bar, The Village Idiot Pub, hired me to create a graphic for their new business.

He told me that they wanted wanted a victorian style pub goer riding a manatee

I sent him a quick sketch, that I think I drew on the back of an old envelope, and sent him a quick picture to get his thoughts.

When I do these I am always thinking about silhouette and how well the image reads.

He liked the initial idea but thought he should have a beer in one hand so I sent him this

I refined the character a bit and added the elements that the client wanted.

They felt that the wanted to see a more classy looking pub goer so I put together a new sample and sent this off.

They greenlighted this version so I developed it into the next phase. -I try to keep these early versions as simple as I can to keep my hours under control and not over commit creatively or energetically to a beginning concept.

I really thought he needed a hat so added this in this version which the client loved and cleaned up the design, silhouette and pose.

The client, after having a talk with the other owners, decided that the manatee element wasn't the direction they wanted to go and asked me to try having him riding a keg of beer instead.

So, I sent them this version-riding the keg of beer and adding another pint of beer to the character now that the reins were no longer needed for the manatee.

They loved this so I moved forward with the inking of the image.

I inked this with (mostly) crow quill with a number 2 nib to create a "hatchy" victorian style illustration.
The client loved the inked version so I moved forward to finishing the graphic by adding a logo.
I chose a font that I thought matched the style and energy of the illustration.

And here is the final image:)
Totally fun to do and the client was super happy with the final image.

I like to show my process on stuff like this to continue to blow up the idea that artists and designers just "poop" out their images without any preliminary thought, work or exploration.
Sometimes you get lucky and crush it with your very first idea and concept but often a certain amount of development and refinement has to be gotten through before you arrive at a finished image.